


Runs in the Family

by Teuthida



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Family, Katsukis are terrible drunks, M/M, Pining Victor Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 03:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13755165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teuthida/pseuds/Teuthida
Summary: Mari flicked through the pictures, her eyes wide. "Just how drunk was he?"Victor flushed. "Very. He was very drunk."Mari smiled slowly and handed his phone back to him. "Victor, let me tell you a story."





	Runs in the Family

Victor loved Hasetsu.

He hadn't been there very long, not yet, but he loved it. He loved the onsen and the warm, therapeutic waters. He loved the familiar but still completely alien wide open ocean. He loved the small town charm. He loved the Ice Castle, well worn but still obviously well cared for. He loved the Japanese train system that meant that he could be in Fukuoka in no time if he felt a sudden need for a slightly less of that small town charm. He loved the food, oh, the wonderful food. And he loved the people, who had welcomed him with open arms.

If only Yuuri would stop running away from him, Hasetsu would be perfect. Yuuri had invited him here, hadn't he? First at the banquet, and then with the video. He'd come, just like Yuuri had asked. He was going to coach Yuuri into the champion he was destined to be. Victor had just naively thought there'd be more than just coaching going on; that he'd show up and just immediately be welcomed into Yuuri's heart and, hopefully, Yuuri's bed. He hadn't expected to be quite this lonely.

He sighed and sat down on the floor in the private family area. Victor felt like he was intruding even being in the inner sanctum, but there was some kind of local celebration going on in the main public room about what he thought was a youth baseball game, and he really didn't want to sit in his room alone. He rested his his head on his knees and let himself drift, the sounds of the distant party and the small television Mari had left on flowing over him. 

Mari came back into the room and put a basket down by his head. "If you're going to sit with me, you're going to help fold towels."

Victor took a towel out of the basket and started folding, copying the way Mari was mechanically doing it. He tried to make sense of the show Mari was watching. The main characters seemed to be two women who belonged to some sort of motorcycle racing club. He couldn't tell if they were lovers, rivals, oddly contentious friends, or disturbingly close sisters. His money was currently on either rivals or lovers. Possibly both?

"Why did you come here?" Mari asked, after the show went to commercial.

Victor put a folded towel on the pile. "Because Yuuri went running with Makkachin and I didn't want to sit alone in my room?"

Mari looked at him, her eyes serious. "No, why did you come to Hasetsu?"

"To coach Yuuri," Victor said slowly. He thought he'd be clear on that.

Mari sighed and her fingers twitched, like she wanted a cigarette. "Right. But why my brother? Because of a video? He's good, I know that. I don't really follow skating, but no matter what he says, you don't go the Olympics without being good. But he's also not...." she trailed off, thinking.

Victor waited her out, folding another towel. He wished he'd talked to Yuuri at the Olympics, the first time they would've been in Sochi together. Or at Worlds, or World Team Trophy, or any other time he might've had the opportunity. He felt like he'd missed something monumental right in front of his face for years.

"He's not usually the type of person someone would upend their life for," Mari said finally.

Victor stared down at his hands, folding another crease. Mari was wrong, Yuuri was exactly the type of person Victor would upend his life for. He sighed.

"Because he asked me to," he said quietly.

"He asked you to," Mari repeated, disbelievingly. She put the towel she was holding carefully down on the pile and stared at him. "When did he ask you to?"

"At the Grand Prix Final banquet," Victor said. "It was amazing!" He dug his phone out of his pocket and opened his favorite non-Makkachin album, the one he'd been spending far too much time staring at lately, and handed it to her. "We danced, and it was one of the best nights of my life. Then he asked me to coach him. And then nothing, until the video. I thought he was finally reaching out."

Mari flicked through the pictures, her eyes wide. "Maybe he was," she said slowly, and muttered under breath in Japanese. She stopped and turned the phone around so he could see the screen, and Victor saw the picture of Yuuri in nothing but his boxer-briefs and hideous tie, showing off his upper arm strength by holding his body parallel to the floor and holding Chris's weight above him. "Just how drunk was he?"

Victor flushed. He'd looked at that particular picture far too often. "Very. He was very drunk."

Mari smiled slowly and handed his phone back to him. It was a friendlier and warmer smile than Victor had seen on her before. "Victor, let me tell you a story."

Victor turned his whole body to face her.

"When my father was nineteen, he went to a party, and he got incredibly drunk. While he was there, he ran into a girl he'd gone to school with. They'd never been close or even been in the same class, in fact they'd barely even talked before, but he'd had a crush on her for years. And my father, in his drunken confidence, asked that girl to dance," Mari said.

Victor smiled. "Did she accept?"

"Oh, she did. Of course, she had years of ballet training, futilely trying to catch up to her senpai, and he could barely keep the rhythm, so I understand the dance itself was not very good." Mari grinned at him.

Victor could picture it, Toshiya falling over his feet and Hiroko holding him up. It was a surprisingly adorable mental image.

"After they danced, they drank more, and they talked the night away. My father told that girl all about his family onsen, about how much he admired her, and about how he'd never had the courage to talk to her before. She, in return, told him all about how lonely she was now that her best friend lived in America and how she wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life. Then he asked her to marry him," Mari said, and paused dramatically. "And then he immediately fell asleep."

Victor burst out laughing.

"Well, the next day, the girl went to find him and maybe ask him out on a date. But he was embarrassed about how he'd acted, and hid from her." Mari's face was solemn.

Victor had already figured that Yuuri was embarrassed about how he'd acted, and he knew that no one was quite the same drunk as they were sober, but it was oddly reassuring to find out it was a family trait. "What did she do?"

"She was very persistent, wore him down, and I was born about a year and a half later," Mari said dryly.

Victor smiled, but it felt oddly forced.

Mari sighed and reached out to awkwardly pat him on the shoulder. "Look, Victor, what I'm saying is that you have to give him time, but you also have to keep pushing, gently, because if you don't, he's going to keep running and hiding." Her lips quirked up. "Judging by those pictures, push just enough and we'll probably be planning your wedding by this time next year."

Victor flushed. "I really did come to coach him."

"I'm sure you did," Mari said. "But that's not the only thing you came for."

Victor didn't deny it. He couldn't. He turned to look at the television, where the two women were standing at a finish line next to their motorcycles, holding their helmets beneath their arms. The sun was setting behind them.

Mari raised her hands to her mouth and made an excited sound.

"What?" Victor asked.

"Himeko just asked Saki to ride with her for the rest of their careers, and Saki said she hoped their careers would last forever!"

"That's nice?"

Mari blinked at him and then laughed. "It was a marriage proposal. She accepted."

"Oh!" So, definitely lovers then. He filed the indirect proposal away in the back of his mind.

"No, Makkachin!" Yuuri's voice came from the hall, and Makka bounded into the room, running straight into their carefully folded pile of towels to jump onto Victor.

"Makka!" Victor laughed and threw his arms around her. "Who's going to refold all those towels now? Your paws aren't very good for that."

Mari sighed and shook her head, reaching out to scratch Makka behind the ears.

"I'm so sorry," Yuuri said, coming into the room. He was sweating from his run, and Victor thought he was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen, even if he still wasn't quite in competition shape. "She heard your voice and ran away from me."

Victor beamed up at him, gratified when Yuuri flushed and looked away. Push, gently, just enough. He could do that. He would do that. "Yuuri, after we refold these towels, take a nap with me!"

"What? Victor!" Yuuri looked like he wanted to run again. Damn.

Mari covered her face with her hand. Okay, maybe not pushing quite that way. But he was going to get this right. He was. He had to.

He only wished he spoke enough Japanese to ask Hiroko for advice.


End file.
